The contextual-mean effect remains negative across every achievement decile and across MSC quantiles, with no systematic attenuation at the top¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · associational r2–r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? In decile-stratified models the contextual effect stayed negative in every achievement decile with no systematic attenuation toward zero at the upper end. → Herbert W. Marsh 2026 q2 i? Exploratory quantile regression showed the contextual effect remained negative and broadly stable across quantiles, with only modest attenuation at the extreme upper tail. → Herbert W. Marsh 2026 (2)

Evidence¶

Herbert W. Marsh 2026¶

Herbert W. Marsh. (2026). Four Decades After the Big-Fish–Little-Pond Effect: Critical Boundary Tests and Integrative Models of Mean-Context, Ordinal-Standing, and Distributional-Scaling in 46 Countries. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-026-10200-0

q2 · i? · associational · r2

Decile-stratified multilevel fits (Fig. 4) of the same specification within achievement deciles: "the contextual class-average effect remained negative across every achievement decile", with minor fluctuations attributed to reduced effective sample size within strata.

"In the achievement-decile analyses, the contextual class-average effect remained negative across every achievement decile and showed no systematic attenuation toward zero at the upper end of the achievement distribution (Fig. 4)."

Herbert W. Marsh 2026 (2)¶

Herbert W. Marsh. (2026). Four Decades After the Big-Fish–Little-Pond Effect: Critical Boundary Tests and Integrative Models of Mean-Context, Ordinal-Standing, and Distributional-Scaling in 46 Countries. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-026-10200-0

q2 · i? · associational · r3

Exploratory quantile-regression analyses of MSC across τ = 0.10–0.90 (Fig. 5): "the contextual effect remained negative and broadly stable", with the slight upper-tail attenuation attributed to ceiling compression in a negatively skewed MSC distribution.

"Across quantiles (τ = 0.10–0.90), the contextual effect remained negative and broadly stable, with only modest attenuation at the extreme upper tail of the MSC distribution (Fig. 5)."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Academic Self-Concept — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• The negative contextual-mean effect persists for the top-ranked student in each class, constraining rank-sufficiency accounts — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)
• Adding a quadratic achievement term leaves the negative contextual-mean effect essentially unchanged — related
• Contextual-mean effects show little moderation by individual achievement; apparent positive moderation is illusory when the quadratic term is omitted — related
• Integrative models indicate much of the apparent ordinal-rank effect reflects distributionally scaled relative achievement, while contextual means remain the most robust comparative indicator — a broader claim this one bears on